To Our Next Destination
John Connor Brown Care Center in Tiendeng

After another five hour train ride, we arrived in Nanning. Since this trip was during the afternoon, we had seats rather than a sleeper bed, but it was not great. It was a very dirty train and we had to deal with peasants (the poorest people in China travel this way). There were also many screaming children and since they do not use diapers in China, they let them go to the bathroom wherever they are even though there are crude restrooms on the train. There was a lot of loud talking, arguing and eating going on the entire trip. Only the uneducated and very poor have poor manners and are often rude. The more educated people always treat us with great respect and courtesy, but we never expect it from the poor class in China.

The seats were terribly uncomfortable so Ron’s back was hurting worse the next day. It was the only train we have been on that was late arriving at the station. You might know it would be this one! But we changed from the poorest level of transportation to the very best when we arrived in Nanning, three hours from Tiendeng to our destination that night. (Tiendeng is located in Southern China about 50 miles from the Viet Nam border).

Mr. Edward Li, the head of Toyota, heard that we were coming to visit our care centers in Tiendeng and Pingguo. When Jim Griffith and his family from North Canton, Ohio, came in September, Mr. Li personally escorted them. He was in Guilin at the time we arrived, so he sent a driver in one of their new $60,000 cars to meet us at the train station and drive us to the John Connor Brown Care Center in Tiendeng. The driver stayed overnight at a hotel to take us to Pingguo the next afternoon.

We were invited to stay in the home of Ross and his lovely wife in Tiendeng. They are volunteers who help at the orphanage. Ross is from Australia and Raewyn (I’m not sure if I have spelled her name correctly) is from New Zealand. They have two children of their own and two adopted Chinese boys. Their children are wonderful teenagers. We got in about 11 p.m. so we met their sweet children the next morning at breakfast. The Chinese boys are younger. They were found in suitcases as babies as part of a smuggling ring of Chinese babies. They are very fortunate boys to have a lovely family now.

Their house is amazing. It is narrow but has five floors of rooms. There are two rooms and a bath on each floor so the winding stairs just go up and up from the first floor to the roof.
From the roof, they have a fabulous view of the mountains, fields and lake. They have white tile floors that were spotless. It was a beautiful place, but right on a very busy and noisy street in the middle of town.

We owe a lot to this family. They also gave Ronald, our son, a room when he first arrived in Tiendeng. They have encouraged and helped him so much. Ross and Ronald have done a lot to clean things up at the care center and assist the workers in making this a better place for the children. The construction of the new kitchen and dining room has begun so Ronald’s time will now be devoted to that work. Ross said he and his wife will continue to help Mark oversee things at the care center. They are helping teach the children, get things better organized and maintain a cleaner care center. They have sorted through a room full of clothing that was donated to see what is usable and what needs to be passed on to others.


Ron did a check list of things that need to be done to improve the building. With so many children, things are naturally going to get dirty, so walls and windows need to be cleaned and many places need new paint. Maintenance of the buildings is a constant problem, but we want the children to live in a clean and nice facility.

Seeing Ronald was especially nice. He has
accomplished so much in the few months he’s been in China and we are very grateful for his assistance. The children love him and call him Uncle Ron. They sometimes drive him crazy hanging on him and teaching him Chinese words, but I think for the most part, he loves them very much. He said sometimes he has to say, “No, no, that’s enough,” and they have learned that they must stop playing with him so he can do other things.

Ronald built a wonderful table for their dining room. It bothered him that the rice cookers were placed on the floor and the children had to bend down to fill their bowls. Now they have a nice table for this purpose. The present kitchen is in another room and food is brought to the dining room and served family style at the tables. While workers and children were away for recent holidays, Ronald scrubbed every pot and pan in the kitchen, organized the shelf items and cleaned the floor.



The children were so sweet and well-behaved. They wanted to touch us and hug us all the time we are there. They laughed and enjoyed the fact that we are Ronald’s parents. I told them when I arrived, “I am Uncle Ron’s Mama,” and they kept repeating “Uncle Ron’s Mama.” It was difficult to tell them goodbye when it was time for us to leave.

We ate lunch that day in the city with two government officials from the school system. The building we use for the care center is on the school property, so we try to keep a good relationship with these employees. The Toyota driver also had lunch with us and then drove us to Pingguo.

Many Miles Behind us and Many More to Go
Neil Taylor Christian Care Center Was Our First Stop


One week ago we left Atlanta and we have traveled many, many miles. Trips to China with Ron are challenging and not for the “faint-hearted.” But it’s a great adventure and experience if a person is flexible and does not expect a “luxurious tour.” It is anything but that! We go days without a shower or bed and have many meals of nuts and fruit in-between hotels. Don’t worry, we have not lost any weight!

From Shanghai we flew to Guilin where we met John Li, our worker over the foster care children in that city. John brought Lilly, a fellow-Christian and his English teacher, to meet us. She helps John with the visits to the orphan children. We had lunch together and then they saw us off at the train station as we left for Rongshui.

Rongshui is the city where our Neil Taylor Care Center is located. Most of you remember that King was our first burn patient to the U.S. and lived with Ron and me for 19 months. When he returned to China, he chose to go to this care center.


King came to meet us at the train station and had dinner with us the night we arrived. We did have a decent hotel that night and good food in the restaurant. King came back the next day about noon and went to lunch with us before we left by train for Nanning at about 3 p.m. King looked really great. He’s grown taller and was clean and neatly dressed. He lives at the high school but comes to the care center when he has time. He has classes all day and at night. He is studying seven subjects and said his work is very hard. He must study almost all the time to keep up his grades. He said he would have made 100 on an English test but carelessly made one mistake that cost him 4 points. He said he ranks #7 out of 67 students. We encouraged him to keep up the work because he wants to come to the United States for college. He was so sweet and our reunion with him was comfortable and lovely.

King’s thumb that had surgery has become bent due to scar tissue so he really needs to have more surgery to correct that as well as at least two facial surgeries. We will help him return just as soon as we can, but it can’t delay his education.

Due to an outbreak of N1H1, schools had closed in that city.
There were only 20 of our orphans still at the care center. The rest had gone home to visit relatives to reduce the risk of exposure. A 16-year old girl from our care center was in the hospital with fever but they did not know if it was the flu.
We only had about a half day at the care center but really enjoyed our time with the precious children who hung on our arms and loved having pictures made with us. The children never want us to leave so it’s hard when it is time to say goodbye.

Rongshui is difficult to travel to and it’s so remote, you feel like you are on a movie set when you arrive there and look around. It just doesn’t seem real to wake up with roosters crowing (at a nice hotel in the middle of the city). The only taxi available is a motorcycle with a covered tent-like structure over it. It only cost cents to ride in it. Only a few cars are on the roads.

How 15 Hours to Shanghai Turns into 24 Hours

For the past 15 months, Delta has operated a direct flight from Atlanta to Shanghai, taking 15 hours, at the most. We usually arrived in 14-l/2 hours. This flight started for the Olympics but they discontinued the flight in September of this year. Now, we have to go the long way to Shanghai.

We left our home Tuesday morning, October 27th, at 9:30 a.m. in the pouring rain. When we arrived at the Atlanta airport, we saw planes lined up to take off. We knew then we would be sitting on the plane for one extra hour before leaving due to the weather conditions. The flight was late boarding everyone because several people needed wheelchairs. After sitting on the plane at the gate for about an hour, the pilot came on and told us that a sick person and companion had to be removed from the plane because we would not have been able to land in Japan with them aboard. He said the problem was that they had to recover their luggage which had already been loaded. We waited another half hour and he announced again that all baggage had been removed and, as might have been expected, the passengers’ bags were in two different sections in the last baggage hold. We waited another 15 or 20 minutes for them to reload the baggage and get us on the taxi way to take off. Needless to say, we were two hours late leaving Atlanta.

Once airborne, we were in very bouncy weather conditions. This continued for an hour before the pilot came on the intercom and stated that the weather front extended all the way to Wisconsin and it would be another 30 minutes before we would be out of it and then the flight attendants could serve lunch. We were finally served lunch at 4 p.m. Atlanta time. I would have gotten something to eat at the airport had I known it would be this late. It was not great food but was still very welcome after having only cereal for breakfast at 7 a.m.

Ron’s seat would not recline. They reset the computer several times but decided to move us to other seats. They had to relocate a lady to another seat for us to have seats together. She was not happy with the move because she wanted a window seat. I suggested she take my former seat which was a window seat. It worked just fine and we all ended up happy.

We arrived in Japan at the Narita airport at 3:30 a.m. Atlanta time. We had three hours in that airport before catching another flight to Shanghai. It was a 3-hour flight so we arrived at 9:30 p.m. (China time) which was exactly 24 hours from the time we left home. We got to bed about midnight.

We will check out of this hotel soon and relocate to a hotel near the airport where we will fly out of early tomorrow morning. We will fly to Guilin and from there take a train to our Neil Taylor Christian Care Center at Rongshui.

In my next segment, I hope to have some pictures to post from the orphanages, but many of the students at the Neil Taylor Care Center have been sent home because of an outbreak of H1N1 flu in the schools. Schools have closed in an effort to prevent an epidemic.

Leaving for China again!

Ron and I will leave Atlanta on October 27th for a fast-paced three-week trip to China. We will visit four of our care centers (John Connor Brown - Tiendeng, Wesley's House - Pingguo, Neil Taylor - Rongshui, and Jackson Family Foundation - Zigong). We have two new locations to see and government officials to meet with in an effort to establish two more care centers next year. We will also tour various hospitals and meet with their administrators to work out arrangements for an open heart medical mission in March and a cleft palate medical mission in August of 2010. We will meet with the head of a foundation in Hong Kong that wants to help financially with our work for the orphan children. Ron will spend a few days with James Triplett's friend in Beijing who will assist us in fund-raising in China for Agape. We will be traveling all over China with only one or two days in each location. Travel is not easy in China. We ask for your prayers on our behalf as we make this busy and challenging trip.

The Langleys are in the U.S.

David, Ya Ning and Ya Ning's mother arrived in the U.S. September 20th for a lengthy stay at their home in Columbia, TN. In the picture, Ya Ning and David are on the left. Ya Ning and David will have a baby in December and plan to return to China early next year. Let's all pray that everything goes well for Ya Ning and the baby.

In David's absence in Beijing, his work is being handled by James Triplett. James goes by the name of "Trip" and is from Corinth, MS. Trip has been in China six years teaching English in the universities. He came on board with Chinese Agape in July, 2009. In addition to the work with the legal church of Christ in Beijing, he will later visit orphanages and teach the children and workers. He is a Freed-Hardeman graduate. Trip worked tirelessly with us at the medical mission in Chengde in August. We grew to love him and his girl friend, Sophia (on the right).

Jim Self, another Freed-Hardeman graduate was also hired this summer. He and his wife, Jane, have been teaching at Neil Taylor Christian Care Center and Wesley's House Christian Care Center since he began work with us in August.

The addition of good people to assist with the work is such a blessing. David knows these young men personally, having gone to university with them. They will be a very compatible team to get the work done.

New Kitchen and Dining Room to be Added

When the John Bailey family visited John Connor Brown Christian Care Center in August, they noticed that food was being prepared in a room. No kitchen facility was built into the school that now houses 56 orphaned children. Dr. Bailey asked if we could build a kitchen there. After Ronald (son of Ron and Pat Brown) completed the remodeling of dorm rooms and baths at Wesley's House, he relocated to Tiendeng to prepare for this addition to the JCB building.

It's been a slow start because much had to be done. Several people were involved in the decision about where it would be built. Bank accounts to handle the construction funds had to be opened in Pingguo. Soil borings were done to be sure the ground is adequate for the building. Drawings for the new facility have also been prepared by an engineer. Ronald drew up the design of the kitchen and dining room himself. He has experience in the food service business and knows how a commercial kitchen should be laid out and furnished.


Ronald was invited to the home of a government official for his birthday dinner. It was his first visit to a Chinese home and enjoy locally home-prepared food. He said it was very delicious. They even prepared a cake from sweet rice for him. The daugher-in-law of the official invited Ronald to come to her English class. He spoke to two high school classes and enjoyed the interchange with the children. Many of the students wanted his autograph.

Ronald has taken many pictures at the orphanages and of the countryside. The countryside is very beautiful in these southern regions. There are rice, banana and sugar cane fields everywhere. The land is flat inbetween the tall peaked mountains. Even the mountainsides are terraced in order to plant gardens. No good soil is every wasted in China.

PICTURES OF THE JACKSON FAMILY FOUNDATION IN ZIGONG, CHINA

The first children have arrived at the new orphanage. Boxes of blankets arrived and the children are settling into their new home.

More children are relocating from Yongshan. The Yongshan children have been supported by Chinese Agape Foundation for many years and now have an opportunity to move to a new home. Many of the children will not come due to their age, nearing the end of high school. Some will have to stay with old relatives to take care of them. The children that are free to relocate will have a wonderful home and a much better opportunity for a good education.


The view from the windows of the orphanage are so beautiful. Most of us wish we had a view like this from our homes. It will be a wonderful place for the 100+ children that will live in this four-story building.


Chad and Carlyn Jackson, representing the Jackson Family visited the construction site in August. They did not get to see the building in a pretty stage at that time but could only imagine how it would look. They loved the view from the orphanage. We stopped at a typical Chinese home so they could see how the children live in the countryside. A little girl was at home so they enjoyed meeting her. After visiting Zigong, Chad and Carlyn came to Chengde to the medical mission for two days. The picture was taken as they arrived for the cleft palate mission. Their company supplied several of the doctors and nurses for this mission and wanted to see them in action. Chad and Carlyn observed in the operating room one day. Chad looked like an official "Doctor" in his scrubs!